Digital replica: Tuvalu turns to Metaverse to guarantee its existence

Wellington: Tuvalu plans to build a digital version of itself, replicating islands and landmarks and preserving its history and culture as rising sea levels threaten to submerge the tiny Pacific island nation.

Tuvalu’s Foreign Minister Simon Kofe told the COP27 climate summit in Egypt that it was time to look at alternative solutions for his country’s survival and this included Tuvalu becoming the first digitised nation in the Metaverse – an online realm that uses augmented and virtual reality (VR) to help users interact.

A strip of land between the Pacific Ocean, left, and lagoon in Funafuti, Tuvalu. The low-lying South Pacific island nation of about 12,000 people has been classified as ‘extremely vulnerable’ to climate change by the UN.Credit: Getty Images

“Our land, our ocean, our culture are the most precious assets of our people and to keep them safe from harm, no matter what happens in the physical world, we will move them to the cloud,” he said in the video in the platform that sees him standing on a digital replica of an islet threatened by rising sea levels.

Kofe grabbed global attention at last year’s COP26 when he addressed the conference standing knee-deep in the sea to illustrate how Tuvalu was on the front line of climate change.

Tuvalu was having to act because countries globally were not doing enough to prevent climate change, he said.

Tuvalu will be the first country to replicate itself in the metaverse but follows both the city of Seoul and the island nation of Barbados which last year said they would enter the metaverse to provide administrative and consular services, respectively.

“The idea is to continue to function as a state and beyond that to preserve our culture, our knowledge, our history in a digital space,” Kofe told Reuters ahead of the announcement.

Tuvalu’s Minister for Justice, Communication and Foreign Affairs Simon Kofe gives a COP26 statement while standing in the ocean in Funafuti, Tuvalu, last year.

Tuvalu, a group of nine islands and 12,000 people halfway between Australia and Hawaii, has long been a cause célèbre for the risks of climate change and rising sea levels.

Up to 40 per cent of the capital district is underwater at high tide, and the entire country is forecast to be under water by the end of the century.

Kofe said he hoped the creation of a digital nation would allow Tuvalu to continue to function as a state even if it became completely submerged.

This is important as the government begins efforts to ensure that Tuvalu continues to be recognised internationally as a state and its maritime boundaries – and the resources within those waters – are maintained even if the islands are submerged.

A dancer from the Tuvalu Youth Dance Troupe looks from the doorway after performing at the opening of a COP27 panel discussion on climate security in the Pacific.Credit: AP

Kofe said seven governments had agreed to continual recognition but there were challenges if Tuvalu went under as it would represent as a new area of international law.

Vague language on funding arrangements in a final decision text would not be acceptable to island nations like his which are threatened by rising seas and fiercer storms, he said.

Meanwhile, Vanuatu’s climate change minister said his nation would consider the COP27 climate talks “a failure” if they concluded without a new fund for vulnerable countries to tackle “loss and damage” fuelled by global warming.

Ralph Regenvanu said Vanuatu was the first country to introduce the term “loss and damage” at the UN climate negotiations in 1991.

Today, large parts of the world are suffering from the accelerating impacts of climate change - and poorer countries on the front lines are seeking help to cope and recover.

A year ago at COP26 in Glasgow, developing nations made a strong plea for a new fund or facility to channel “loss and damage” finance, but secured only a three-year dialogue on it.

“This is where it has to happen,” Regenvanu, who is also an MP for Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila, said in an interview at the talks.

Regenvanu - who was previously a minister working on land issues - said Vanuatu’s government needed to do more to help people living in low-lying areas near the sea who are struggling to cope with worsening floods and the intrusion of saltwater into the soils.

“Now we are seeing much more issues like heavy rainfall causing landslides ... [and] large areas becoming uninhabitable because of water damage and flooding,” he said.

“So we’re going to have to look into large-scale resettlement of people within the country.”

“Right now, people are just moving with their feet - they are just leaving areas ... They have got to move otherwise their lives are in danger,” he said. In Vanuatu people could at least relocate to higher ground in mountainous parts of the islands.

“Sea level rise won’t destroy our country,” he said, adding that lower-lying Pacific island states like Tuvalu and Kiribati could face that existential threat.

Reuters